Environment Committee on Nov. 20th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Monsieur St-Pierre.

Is there any debate?

Go ahead, Mr. Grant.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I don't think I was here that day, but I have now seen it and I do have a couple of amendments.

My first one is in the third paragraph. Where it says, “Whereas industrial carbon pricing systems have an average impact of approximately 0 per cent on household consumption in 2025”, it should say “household cost in 2025”.

That's the first amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

We'll do one amendment at a time so we can give the option to all members to discuss each amendment.

On that first amendment, Mr. Leslie, go ahead.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I would love to make some comments on that.

It's a very definitive statement that the “industrial carbon pricing” system has “an average impact of approximately”, followed by the very specific number of “0”. For the amendment to say that it has no impact on costs would mean that it doesn't exist, because anything that is increased in cost due to and passed on to the consumer.... I take issue with the entirety of that line being a claim of a factual statement.

Regardless of the amendment, I would move a subamendment that the entirety of that line simply be removed for accuracy's sake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Go ahead, Monsieur Bonin.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, since we're trying to move forward as quickly as possible, is it essential that this reference be in the preamble of the motion? I think the goal is to adopt the motion and get on with the study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. St‑Pierre, would you like to answer that question?

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Bonin. The goal is to adopt the motion.

I agree with removing that sentence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Is there any further debate on this amendment or on the removal of this sentence?

Okay, can we go forward with the first subamendment please? The subamendment is to remove the sentence.

(Subamendment agreed to)

Great, so now we'll go to the initial amendment as amended.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

He wants the original amendment. Is that right? I thought we just took it out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Now we'll do your second amendment.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Yes, I want to talk about the amount of time we spend. The committee meets for seven meetings on this study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Can I just intervene for a minute, because the clerk is a little confused?

The first amendment was with respect to including the word “cost”. Then, there was a subamendment to that first amendment that was to remove the whole sentence. In conclusion, we adopted to remove the whole sentence, so therefore the first amendment with respect to inserting the word “cost” has dropped, because the whole sentence has been deleted.

Now we're going to the second amendment.

Can you please recap so that we can look at that before going forward?

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

At the end of the final paragraph, we add “that the committee meet for seven meetings on the study”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

The second amendment is with respect to having seven meetings.

Is there debate?

Go ahead, Mr. Leslie.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate that the government has decided to offer any clarity. When this motion was first tabled, I was very skeptical that they would want it to be a very long study to run out the clock of this committee's important work, and it turns out that seven is just how long they want to run out the clock for on the important work of this committee. I think that is exceedingly long, given that the government has indicated in the budget that they plan to strengthen it, with no indication as to what that looks like, while also simultaneously paring back other marquee Liberal-era policies regarding the environment.

I have very little faith that the work of this committee is going into the development of an actual policy of what “strengthening” looks like, and I'd be very curious whether the Liberal members might have some insight as to when their “might be” announced changes come because, realistically, we will not start this study until February.

Based on the calendar, we have four outstanding appearances from the minister, and I noticed that the minister's appearance is not even included in this. It seems odd that the government would not want their own minister to appear on such an important issue, to discuss what “strengthening” might look like. Perhaps it's because we have yet to see the minister before this committee. I know she is slated to attend some time in early December, after not one but four separate invitations to appear before this committee. Again, a glaring omission from this particular motion itself is the fact that there is no desire to have the minister come before this committee to explain what “strengthening” means in the budget.

I'm opposed to the entirety of this motion because I think it's on the government to come forward with clarity about what their own policy is, unless they give us some confidence that anything we do during a study of this would actually go towards looking at what strengthening a policy would look like. However, given the calendar as it exists and that the environment commissioner came out with reports—which the government, I'm sure, doesn't want to hear, when he comes to tell us that we are nowhere near on track to meeting our emissions reduction targets—I think that should certainly take a priority, as well as the calendar, which is already very full.

Again, this is going to start in February, when we return—maybe late January in a best-case scenario. Setting up for seven meetings will take us, with other ongoing drafting, we have numerous reports.... This is an obscenely long study for the review of a policy that, I would hope.... Given the urgency this government stated it's going to act on, in terms of both economic growth and emissions reductions, but has yet to live up to, it seems silly for us to commit ourselves to such a lengthy study so far into the future.

I do not believe that we should be giving ourselves seven meetings. Frankly, I think we should put a pause on the entirety of this to allow the government to come forward with its plans for what strengthening the industrial carbon tax actually looks like.

I'll pause there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. St‑Pierre, you have the floor.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I'll keep it short.

This was a key item in the budget. The Canadian Climate Institute mentioned that industrial carbon pricing will probably be the most effective climate policy to meet our emissions reduction targets.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

That was the EV mandate.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

It's interesting, because we just had a vote on the election, and two of your members were hiding behind curtains, so, clearly, you guys don't want an election. I think we're going to be here in January, for sure. You have a leadership review for your party.

If you want to debate the amount of time in the motion, I'm very happy to take your suggestions on the amount of time, but I hear, quite often...I feel that about half of the questions in the House these days are on industrial carbon pricing. I hear a lot of the opposition talk about the industrial carbon price, so I actually thought this would be quite of interest to all of the parties here today, especially for the Conservative Party. I think it's an opportunity to do a deep dive on this issue, and I suggest we take it to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. Bonin, you have the floor.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, I share some of my Conservative colleague's concerns about our already busy agenda. However, I think it's important for the committee to move forward and be able to adopt motions. Then we can agree on a schedule. I would therefore like to limit debate on this motion.

I also believe that seven to nine meetings on this topic is far too many. We had four to six meetings for the entire emissions reduction plan. Carbon pricing is only part of it. It seems to me that we could hold a maximum of four meetings and debate how to fit them into the schedule.

Everyone seems to want to talk about carbon pricing. It would be nice if we could move forward on that today. We will have time during the session to talk about the schedule. We'll have to see what priority we give it, how we make sure the minister comes back and which study we start first, this one or the one on insurance.

Since we're going to begin a round of questions, I'd like us to move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mr. St‑Pierre, do you want to respond to Mr. Bonin?

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, I'll do it very quickly.

I think four meetings would be reasonable.

It being one o'clock, we can go to a vote on four full meetings. I think we need to be very productive. This is an extremely important topic.

I'm ready to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Before I go to Mr. Ross, I want to check to see if there's a subamendment to this amendment.

Is that what you proposed?